


Fragile Bodies

by fengirl88



Series: Kiss Chase [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Kissbingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-25
Updated: 2011-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 02:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fragility of bodies haunts him in a way it never used to.  He was impatient with the body's  demands, its weakness: the mind's all that matters, <i>everything else is just transport</i>.</p><p>post-The Great Game, from Sherlock's point of view. Fourth in the sequence that began with Kiss Chase and continued with Worse Things and First Light.</p><p>warnings/contains: minor character deaths, traumatic memory (nothing graphic in either case)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fragile Bodies

**Author's Note:**

> written for the kissbingo prompt square "body: shoulder".
> 
> This one's for ginbitch, on her birthday.

The fragility of bodies haunts him in a way it never used to. He was impatient with the body's demands, its weakness: the mind's all that matters, _everything else is just transport_.

But that was before waking out of the nightmare to find John there. Waking again the morning after, feeling John's breath on his neck and in his hair, the heat of his body against his back, the weight of John's arm thrown across him. Lying there for what felt like hours, longing to make love; and then the fulfilment of that desire, beyond anything he could have imagined. The memory of it still makes him dizzy, takes his breath away.

Now his awareness of John's body, of his own, is so intense the very thought of it is tender like a bruise. And the world has never seemed more frightening.

Moriarty has changed the rules. No pips, no riddles, just a text:

COMING READY OR NOT :*

Five people dead in the explosion that woke John, though they didn't know that till later. Didn't know that was what had woken him until they found the message on the pink phone and switched on the TV news with a feeling of dread. Till they saw the debris and the scrolling message at the foot of the screen, he hadn't realized the destruction had already happened: that there was nothing he could do about it any more. He doesn't even get a chance to try, and he has no idea where or when Moriarty will strike next, or how long it will be before he comes close enough to do what he threatened, _burn the heart out of you_.

Sherlock still doesn't care about other people the way he cares about John. But the feeling seeps through the cracks and chinks till he understands it faintly, like something far off or in a foreign language. What it would be like to care about people the way John does, or Lestrade. It's just as well he doesn't, or he'd be going crazy right now. He's close enough to that as it is.

In bed, they lie holding each other, clasped tight against the tremors, the nightmares, the fever sweats, the chills. He traces every mark and scar on John's body. Old scars from childhood, a surprisingly deep one on the knee (misjudged the height of a branch he was jumping over). Recent scars, still vivid, from the blast at the pool, scattered across his legs and chest. The scar tissue on his shoulder, where they'd dug the bullet out that ended his Army career.

Sherlock runs his fingers over John's scarred shoulder, bends to kiss it. John shifts a little, apparently still capable of being embarrassed by Sherlock's passionate focus on that wrecked part of his body. But he doesn't tell him to stop.

Sherlock's head is full of images and sounds of explosions and gunfire. It's as if he's got John's memories of Afghanistan as well as his own of Moriarty at the pool. He doesn't know how John stands it.

He presses his lips to John's shoulder, shaking again, and John strokes his back, saying loving muffled things into his hair. Sherlock kisses the scar as if he could erase the signs of John's mortality, the body's vulnerability.

“I wouldn't be here, but for that,” John says, and there's a quiet wondering note in his voice that makes Sherlock's heart contract. “I'd never have met you at all.”

“Don't,” Sherlock says, hugging him tightly.

“It's true though,” John says.

They don't speak again of the damage that's brought them to where they are now, all the dead and injured bodies, or of how many more there will be before Moriarty's game is played out. They make love as if each time might be the last, kiss as if nothing else matters any more, nothing else makes sense, lying in the wreckage of the world they used to know.


End file.
